


Scars And Stripes

by 500shadesofblue



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-09
Updated: 2018-12-09
Packaged: 2019-05-04 06:30:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14587005
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/500shadesofblue/pseuds/500shadesofblue
Summary: Canon-divergent work from "My Scars, They are Your Scars" by NyxEtoile.This is a Steve/Amanda/Bucky fic, written to be mostly-compliant with Scars. After the prologue, there are going to be a series of snippets that take place during the Scars timeframe, mostly inspired by quotes/mentions from Scars itself. After that, there will be a Steve/Amanda/Bucky storyline."She remembered something she'd told herself, a long time ago.I can look at a piece of art without having the urge to own it.She had come to terms with having one exception. She didn't know how she felt about developing another."





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [My Scars, They are Your Scars](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1764943) by [NyxEtoile](https://archiveofourown.org/users/NyxEtoile/pseuds/NyxEtoile). 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am exceedingly sure this won't make any sense if you haven't read "My Scars, They are Your Scars" by NyxEtoile. So read it, please, it's lovely! Then, come back and read this. :)

Amanda hadn't taken too much notice of Steve Rogers. Any more notice than the entire world had taken of Captain America, anyways.

After the day when the Triskelion fell and she'd made sure the blonde, tall, soaking wet, and muscular man on her table was alive and well (well as could be expected after a dip in the Potomac, anyways), she moved on to her next patient and that was very much the end of that. Every doctor had stories of working on famous patients, she supposed, but even on risk of her own head she valued patient confidentiality. So, working on Captain America was just another set of confidential details she'd take to her grave.

And then she got a job offer.

In the following months, in between bandaging up and doing physicals for superheroes and fulfilling her dream, just by nature of her job, she formed several opinions on the behavior of the Avengers.

Everyone was rather polite, actually, somewhat of a diverted expectation. She didn't know the usual attitude of an active superhero in an infirmary, but her kneejerk expectation ranged somewhat from 'petulant' to 'belligerent.'

 

Natasha Romanoff, the Black Widow, was distant but absently cordial. She seemed far too used to being examined, sitting unflinchingly and silent through all her physical exams. Connotations put aside, Amanda appreciated the compliance.

Clint Barton, though he had tried to avoid her office disregarding any illness or injury for the first few months (up to and including post-mission wounds that clearly needed stitches), warmed up to her considerably after what had apparently been a 'glowing' review from the Black Widow. (Though, according to Barton, it had only been 'glowing' insofar as Romanoff did 'glowing.') After that, he was an obliging (if talkative) patient, just on the right side of friendly. Like the Black Widow's, his pain tolerance was almost disquieting in its threshold, though he - _unlike_ Romanoff - enjoyed holding somewhat stilted one-sided conversation while she sewed up his battle wounds.

Thor - the Norweigan god - had cheerfully subjected himself to a routine physical checkup in her first few days of employment. After revealing himself to be at the peak of physical perfection, Amanda let him go with a request to "not come back unless you're bleeding out, please." Given his body, almost impervious to wounds, she wasn't betting on seeing him too often.

(The sarcasm was a risk, but Thor let out a big, booming laugh at it, so she let herself have that one.)

Bruce Banner, if possible, was more polite and withdrawn than all the rest of them combined. He was silent as a grave through physicals- and he never needed post-mission surgeries. It took him more than a couple months to warm up to her enough to give more than kind greetings, and even then, he never talked much.

Steve Rogers, on his part, was nothing but polite and affable- as expected of an American icon. He had been completely unconscious during her post-Potomac checkup, and she saw no need to let him know that she _had_ in fact seen him shirtless before, there was no need for the hesitation, really. So, she accepted his unfalteringly formal greetings with good grace, and his polite conversation with slightly less grace, but grace all the same.

Still, out of all of them, it was Stark who fulfilled her expectations. Disregarding any attempt at proper manners, he didn't even  _show up_ for the first couple months, despite her attempts to hunt him down. Eventually, she figured out that the way to his attendance was through Pepper Potts.

 

How exactly she'd 'figured that out' was a tale best left to gossip and hearsay.

 

So, even given the months of regular checkups and post-mission emergency aid, she and Rogers weren't friends. Weren't more than acquaintances in _any_ stretch of the imagination. She was a doctor, and he, one of her handful of patients.

Still, they were acquaintances. So, even if he rarely (if ever) came into her sphere of influence in the medical office, she knew from word of mouth that he was out on a mission to retrieve something important.

She just hadn't known it was going to be a _person._

 

\-----

James Buchanan Barnes showed up on her table.

That day was a fulcrum upon which her small world turned. There was no way for her to know what James would come to mean to her- no way for her to know what any of them would come to mean to her. No way to know what the future would hold.

So she lived her life. She made choices.

And some days, the choices she made were important.

It just so happened that it had been one of those days.

\-----

 

The moment after that first office visit, Rogers stopped behind, for just a second. His eyes darted to the door, expression almost vacant- his mind was elsewhere, following after Barnes, dogging his heels.

But for a fraction of a second, his eyes met hers. He put a large, warm hand on her shoulder, and _what_ was it with supersoldiers making her feel fragile today? But he just squeezed, gently, and with an expression of uncharacteristic vulnerability and a voice awash in gratitude, said “thank you.”

Then he let go and walked out the door, pace brisk, calling out “Bucky!” as he went.

Looks like they'd graduated from ‘acquaintances’ to ‘thankful acquaintances.’

Even as the echoing sound of Rogers’ steps got more distant, Amanda couldn't help but think of Barnes. If any man needed a safe harbor, it was that one.

\-----

“Did I hurt her?” Bucky asked, interrupting Steve’s patter.

The doctor. One of the only ones who hadn't looked at him with fear.

“Dr. Newbury?” said Steve, showing his unnerving penchant for reading Bucky’s mind for the tenth time at least in the bare day since he'd been back. “Yeah, she's completely fine. I looked into her office when I was passing by. She doesn't even have a bandage on her wrist.”

Bucky felt a surge of some emotion he couldn't identify, that Steve had checked on Newbury. But then again, Steve _cared_. Bucky himself was living proof of that. Him checking on the doctor Bucky had almost brutalized wasn't that strange.

“Why do you ask?” said Steve, tone interested. “Dr. Newbury is polite and professional, at least from what I've experienced. If she had a problem, she would've said.”

“I reacted on instinct. She didn't…”

_Didn't what? Didn't deserve it? In case you forgot, you've hurt a lot of people who didn't deserve it._

“Don't worry about it, Buck,” said Steve, tone soothing. “Hey, if you're really worried about it, we can drop in later.”

As usual, Steve’s caring expectation was a weight he almost couldn't bear to carry. Bucky shook his head, turning to look out the window.

The clouds, the people below... like his thoughts, they all seemed very faraway.

\-----

Barnes ghosted her office.

After the conversation about the clothes - what, like she wasn't going to notice Captain America’s shoulder to hip ratio? - she introduced Barnes to the joys of online shopping. The small triumph, the pleased aura of having helped, carried her through the rest of the day.

Later, Rogers came by again. (Though she couldn't figure out where Barnes was, if not with him. Some sort of training? Alone time?) It seemed like she and Rogers had gone from acquaintances to thank-you-friends, in the vein that all he could seem to direct towards her was warm appreciation for every iota of reasonable acceptance she showed Barnes.

She wasn't doing anything special, she told him, matter of fact. It wasn't ‘special’ to act like a decent human being. And he certainly didn't owe her any favors.

The grin on Rogers’ mouth lit up his face like a lamp.

He thanked her and left.

\-----

Rogers came by again to personally thank her after Barnes’ clothes had arrived. _Steve approved,_ Barnes had said.

(Privately, flushing a bit to herself, she couldn't blame him.)

\-----

With Barnes practically living in her office, and Rogers visiting once every week or two (usually to thank her for _something)_ , she felt like she'd unwittingly signed up for some sort of super soldier duty.

Given Rogers’ usual demeanor, though, she'd been almost surprised when he actually brought something up.

 

“Do you think it'd be possible to fix Bucky’s memories?” he said.

She paused.

It was late. Her office was dim, everyone checked out except for her. She was typing up some documents, sending emails, trying to cram in some last minute work before she forced herself to sleep.

She and Rogers had been exchanging idle small talk, office gossip, as they were wont to do whenever they saw one another. They were acquaintances, yes, but friendly ones. And gossip was well within their range of acceptable topics.

Rogers was leaning in the open doorway, blocking all the light like a particularly well-natured and polite lampshade. Strips of light from the hallway wandered into the room around the gaps between his body and the doorframe, painting her office in stripes of illumination. Her hands stilled on her keyboard.

This question, somehow, blindsided her. She hadn't considered it, for whatever reason, and now she was floundering.

“...Maybe?” she said. “I don't… I don't know. I'd have to look into it.”

“Okay,” said Rogers, voice carefully neutral, nonjudgemental. Pressuring nothing.

So of course she had to do something.

“I can look into it,” she said, finally, voice slow, gaining traction and resolve, “but I can't promise anything-”

“Thank you,” said Rogers, blessedly cutting her off, and _this_ was familiar, his gratitude. She felt as if the somewhat frightening uncertainty of the situation had balanced out. “You just- Bucky _likes_ you, for some reason… which isn't to say you're unlikeable!” He straightened from his slouch, waving his hands in front of himself with mild alarm. She couldn't help a snort of laughter, and at his increasing panic, a genuine giggle and a laugh, grinning as she leaned back in her chair.

“I'll say it again,” she said, straightening out, giggles leaking out despite herself, trying to ignore her own acute embarrassment at the laughter. It was  _so_ unlike her to laugh... it had to be a combination of things. The late hour, the situation, the stress. 

Rogers, for his own part, still had the remains of a cowed expression on his face while he looked at her, hands still up in the air like he was trying to ward off the impending disaster of social embarrassment.

“It's no trouble,” she finally said, laughter trailing off, and let her conviction show on her face. “ _He's_ no trouble. The worst he's done is scare the assistants a little, and honestly, if Barnes frightens them, they need to just deal with it. Oh, and he eats my butterscotch lollies, too.”

“I'll see what I can do about that,” said Rogers, tone so serious that he had to be joking, and all she could do was let another small laugh escape.

He laughed too, and as their laughter mingled and trailed off, the reality of the situation - Captain America, in her office, late at night, promising to pay her back for his friend (the Winter Soldier’s) addiction to butterscotch lollies - hit her like a sledgehammer and her laughter trailed into hiccuping giggles and then silence.

As Rogers’ own laughter faded, the situation seemed to hit him as well- gentler than her, but his face faded into serious lines. “I feel like it's all I ever say, with what you're doing for Bucky,” said Rogers, voice soft. “But really, really thank you.”

 _He looks like…_ she felt her mouth get a little dry. _He kind of looks like he wants to give me a hug_. There was a decidedly gratitude-filled, huggy look in his eyes. _Captain America wants to give me a hug. For letting his friend stay in my office. His best friend, whose company I enjoy. Whose company I… enjoy..._

“Well!” she blurted, rising to her feet. She felt ruffled- and made a conscious desire to smooth down her feathers, calm herself. “Well…” she said again, slower this time, tone more even. “I think I'm going to turn in.”

Rogers laughed, a clear, bright sound. The odd mood hovering around the office must've been getting to him, too. “Why am I surrounded by people who can't take a thank you?”

“Maybe it's because you say it so much,” said Amanda helpfully.

“Maybe,” he said, smile fading. “Maybe.”

 

So for Barnes, for her own sake, and for Rogers, she looked into restoring Barnes’ memories.

\-----

“ _What if I prefer blondes?” Barnes said._

_She was sure there was a joke buried in there, somewhere, if she looked close._

\-----

“It would be nice to find some memories that don't come from Steve,” he had said.

_Memories. Objects. An identity. Everything from the bed I toss and turn in at night to the clothes on my back are from Steve._

He looked at the Doctor, peering busily into her microscope, glancing to and fro. The sweep of the flyaways tickling her neck. The silhouette of her jaw he'd tried so hard not to notice.

 _Sometimes,_ he thought, uncharacteristically melancholy, _it feels like you're the only thing he hasn't touched._

\-----

_My Scars, They are Your Scars._

 

 

Prologue, end.


	2. Compilation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so, this project was a passion project, but I don't have the chutzpa to grind all the chapters out. Instead, take this compilation of snippets!
> 
> These are not chronological, though they are _semi_ -chronological.
> 
> Pardon the incredible wait! It's not much, but it's all I can muster. :'D

**Snippet One - Roommates**

 

For the first couple of months, Bucky roomed with Steve.

They hadn't talked about it. It had just sort of… happened, slotting into place naturally.

The first night, he'd crashed on the couch. He had terrors, thrashing and sometimes screaming, and he hadn't wanted Steve to be a part of that. But of course, Steve came running into the room at three in the morning, bedhead rampant and wild eyed. It freaked them both out the first couple of times, but soon after, Steve figured out what was good behavior (according to google, apparently) for those going through PTSD flashbacks.

Steve used to have his own, apparently (which, with a little thought, wasn't all that surprising), though the frequency had waned with plenty of therapy and years awake. Bucky found it hard to picture a future where he slept soundly, but logically, it had to be possible. It had to.

\-----

He and Steve watched movies.

They were roommates. So of course they had habits, routines. Little ways to keep in each other's orbit without crashing. So they watched movies.

He had difficulty sleeping. Insomnia. One night, while he and Steve were sandwiched together on the couch, close but not quite touching, his eyelids started to shutter and droop. Just a moment…

When he woke up, there was drool on his lip, a bad taste in his mouth, light filtering through the blinded windows, and a solid, familiar shoulder under his cheek.

His even, easy breaths hitched- but he fought to keep his breathing measured.  _ Don't wake Steve up.  _ That one thought rang through his head like a gong, spike of adrenaline reverberating in the sound.  _ Do not wake Steve up. _

His heart pounded in his ears.  _ This will not be happening again,  _ he through to himself, extricating all his limbs from Steve, who had curled around him in the night. They were both warm, furnace-like, and they'd created a nest of blankets and heat that'd left them both sweating.  _ Never again. _

But it did happen again.

Half because he  _ wanted  _ it to. The only time he went without night terrors was with the warm pressure of Steve’s body next to his. He didn't know how to feel about it, or how to rationalize it, but there it was.

Steve would ask, or lord help him  _ he  _ would ask, and they'd be dancing around each other without saying anything at all, just like old times. Old lies and half baked justifications.

He'd fall asleep on Steve’s shoulder some nights and go straight to the Doc the morning after, half feeling of guilt bitter in his throat. He didn't even know  _ who  _ he was feeling guilty over.

\-----

“Do you want to watch a movie tonight?” Steve called out, voice rising above the clinking of plates and rush of water from the faucet. Steve was up to his elbows in suds, washing the dishes. Bucky would dry them and put them away, and they'd switch next time.

Bucky’s threat was tight. “Yeah,” he said, voice hoarse. “Okay.”

\-----

And then, six months later, it came time to move out.

\-----

Amanda could admit it to herself even if she couldn't admit it to anyone else: watching James and Captain Rogers carry a couch up several flights of stairs was worth the two weeks of furniture shopping.

\-----

Thinking of Steve, thinking of movies and the couch, it was easier to say yes when Amanda pointed him towards her bed.

 

* * *

**Snippet - Clothes**

 

He really  _ didn't  _ know how it made him feel that she was wearing a t-shirt with prints of Steve’s shield on it.

Her offer of wearing his own merchandise when it came out was appreciated, though.

* * *

**Snippet - Aftermath**

 

She looked sad.

Sad and tired. Exhausted, really, her surgical mask slung around her neck and her scrubs still spattered with blood-  _ Bucky’s  _ blood.

And she'd called him Jamie.

So Steve stepped forward and wrapped his arms around her. She wasn't small, but she felt fragile, even if she was usually solid, and tall enough to rest her chin on his shoulder- which she did.

She wasn't overly warm, but then again, nobody except Bucky really was. There was a momentary pause, and Steve was ready for her to pull away- but she wrapped her arms around him back, and he almost froze, because he had no idea how to deal with this.

He felt her arms as she clung, the solid warmth of them trembling, and for a horrifying moment, he thought she was going to really cry. He would've let her cry on his shoulder. But she breathed in, raspily, and out, a shuddering breath, and she let go, pulling away.

He was terrible with protective instincts- something about the serum and his overpowering sense of justice intensified certain emotions, like fight or flight and other aggression-based gut reactions. But not all of the intensified emotions were straight up  _ bad _ , and with what happened to Bucky, even if the role reversal chafed, he couldn't help but be overly protective. Protectiveness ran in his blood, nowadays. And something in her stance - slumped, shiny eyes, almost trembling mouth - tugged at those instincts until he wanted to hug her again, inexplicably. Wanted to make her not sad.

And then he remembered the reason why she was sad in the first place and  _ he  _ wanted to cry.

“Are you- are you gonna be okay?” he said, voice thick. His own words seemed distant.

_ No,  _ her eyes said. “Yes.” Her voice trembled, ever so slightly, on the last word. Someone so strong, so used to holding themselves together… barely hanging on. Barely holding their fractured pieces in place.

He knew the feeling. He knew  _ seeing  _ the feeling. “Do you want… do you want some company?” he said, and almost couldn't believe he was saying it. He could barely believe the words were coming out of his mouth. “I know Bucky’s usually with you, and with him like this, maybe…” he trailed off at the complicated, not too positive expression on her face. “Maybe the night’ll pass a little faster?”

Her face had frosted over- smoothed out into a neutral shell, calm paint over roiling emotion.

“That's kind of you to offer,” she said, “but I'll be fine.”

\-----

She was not fine.

She was  _ so  _ not fine that she was knocking on the door of Steve’s apartment by one AM.

* * *

**Snippet - Share**

 

_ Pressing a kiss to her ear he murmured, “I know if anything happened to me you’d be on the front lines to save me.” _ __  
_  
_ __ She chuckled, arm tightening on him. “Probably have to fight Steve for the honor.”

_ "He knows how to share.” _

\-----

She remembered something she'd told herself, a long time ago.

_ I can look at a piece of art without having the urge to own it. _

She had come to terms with having one exception. She didn't know how she felt about developing another.

Impending doom, maybe? Crushing horror at the prospect of ruining the best relationship she'd ever had?

She wasn't sure.

* * *

**Snippet - Name**

 

_ “You got him to first name basis,” Amanda said, reaching up so James could pull her to her feet. _ __  
_  
_ __ “And in a fraction of the time it took Steve to get you to do it,” he replied, tucking a loose lock behind her ear .

\-----

“You should really call me Steve,” Rogers said to her one day.

She carefully did  _ not  _ choke on her bite of food. She felt James’ chuckle rumble through her from where he was pressed against her side, arm slung around her like an over-warm scarf. “Good luck with that, Stevie,” he laughed.

She took a moment to appreciate the good things -  _ James is happy, James is comfortable enough with Rogers that he's using an old nickname, Rogers feels comfortable enough with me that he wants to go to a first name basis - _ before she let the panic of  _ Captain America wants me to call him Steve  _ wash over her.

She swallowed her food in an overlarge gulp, chased it with a sip of water, and huffed out a breath to the soundtrack of James’ affectionate snickers and Rogers’ earnest grin. “I really do appreciate it, Captain Rogers,” she stated, matter of fact and a bit prim, “but I don't think…”

“C’mon, darlin,” James drawled, and was he  _ really  _ using the drawl? Right here, right now?

Captain Rogers, for his part, kept the open, honest expression on his face.

“Throw Steve a bone, here,” James said. “I think he's getting pretty sure you're afraid of him, by now.”

Rogers said nothing, but almost instinctively, his eyebrows pulled down into an earnest  _ why?  _ affectation. The mild  _ for the greater good  _ set to his mouth didn't help anything, either.

“We eat lunch,” she said, on the defensive now. “I enjoy lunch. Don't you enjoy lunch?”

She and James used to have their lunches together regularly, until one day in bed, cuddled together and playing with her hair, he'd idly brought up the fact that he wished he could see Steve more often. Amanda, in a spur of self-sacrificing desire to help, murmured “we should take him to lunch with us some day” into James’ bicep.

Giddily, he had grinned, told her she was  _ the best,  _ and rolled her over as she shrieked in surprise to press her down into the mattress.

Incidentally, he'd told her about two days later that Rogers had ‘gladly’ accepted her invitation to join them at lunch.

She and James, if they didn't order takeout, usually walked down to the little cafe just outside of the tower for their lunch. With Rogers with them, they'd gotten an eyebrow raise from their usual waiter, and a relocation into an appropriate booth, but not much else.

The first lunch was crushingly awkward. It felt like an interview- or rather, moreso that she was third-wheeling, trying to sink back into the patchy plush bench as James and Rogers talked about anything and everything, as best friends do. With alarming frequency, James would squeeze her shoulder (which more often that not, he had his arm around) and try to draw her into conversation. She would add her two cents, stiltedly, and try to fade back into the background again as soon as possible.

It wasn't that she  _ didn't  _ want to get along with James’ best friend- or last remaining family, more accurately. It was just that… she and Rogers were acquaintances, had been acquaintances for a while, and she couldn't foresee them ever being more than that. It wasn't that she didn't sympathize with his hardships (similar to James’, in most ways) or his professional demeanor (unfalteringly pleasant). It was just… he was  _ Captain fucking America _ , and no matter what, she couldn't seem to see past that.

Which brought them to lunch.

_ Their  _ lunches had transformed into  _ our  _ lunches, and their lunchtimes had expanded to encompass Rogers’ company. When Rogers was out on a mission, it was just she and James together again, comfortable and familiar.

It was the first day James had been out on a mission without Rogers - “enjoy lunch with Steve!” - that she and Rogers had finally broken through the mile-thick wall of acquaintanceship.

It was a rocky process.  
  


* * *

**Snippet - Circles**

 

_ He chuckled. “When Steve gets a girl it’ll be shields.” _ __  
_  
_ __ “Oh, you can work with that. Circles are pretty ubiquitous .”

 

* * *

**Snippet - Pocketwatch**

 

“Steve and I went down and made a rather impassioned argument for giving it back to you.”

“The boxes are up in Steve’s apartment. I thought you’d want to go through them at your own pace. But I was sure this had to be memorable for you.”

“You’re welcome.” She rubbed his arm lightly. “I’m glad I’m part of your future. But I want to make sure you have links to your past, too.”   
  
Bucky took a deep breath of her scent, then sighed it out. That was probably the best explanation for where he was right now. Building his future while discovering his past. It would be her that helped him figure it out.   
  
He tightened his arms on her. “Thank you,” he repeated, for an entirely different reason.

 

* * *

Snippet - Awkward

They spent most of the week after Christmas holed up in Amanda’s apartment. (They tried a night in James’s but apparently, Steve had a key and just walked right in when he needed something. She was pretty sure he’d gotten an eyeful before she dove behind the couch. Neither of them were looking the other in the eye much since.)

\-----

“Niiiice,” said Darcy, raising her hand for a fistbump. “Bagged yourself two supersoldiers, eh?”

“No!” Amanda couldn't keep the frustration from her voice. She knew Darcy meant well, just wanted to congratulate her on her conquests, but…

Steve and James weren't conquests. They were  _ so  _ far from that.

“It's different than that,” Amanda said, fighting to keep her tone even. “They're different. It's not like that for me. It's not…”

_ It's not casual. It's not just a fling. It's not just sex. _

“Whoa.” Darcy held her hands up in a  _ whoa there  _ motion. “Sorry, Doc. Didn't mean to step on your toes.”

“It's alright,” said Amanda, a defeat leaking into her voice.

* * *

**Snippet - Hot**

 

“How do you make your shield do that thing, Steve?” Amanda said lazily.

She was calling him Steve now, not Captain Rogers, and it made her bold. In the sweltering heat, it made her lazy, too, processing slow like an overheated machine.

“What thing?” Steve said. “It does a lot of things.”

Amanda gestured with an arm, halfheartedly raising it in a backhanded swirling motion before letting it fall limply back to her side. “The thing where it… where you throw it, and it bounces off of a bunch of bad guys, and it lands back in your hand like a boomerang frisbee.”

With her other arm thrown over her eyes to guard from the sun, she didn't see Steve’s raised eyebrow. She was reclining on one of the many beach chairs at the side of Stark tower’s rooftop pool, clad in a white tank top and a pair of loose, comfy linen shorts in a neutral beige. Steve, on his part, who'd just come back from a workout (and found her relaxing on the roof, as she usually did during weekend-times when she was too lazy to venture into the city), was in a tight grey v-neck shirt and loose tracksuit bottoms. He was sweating and tussled, a very dangerous combination. Amanda, who had been cooped up in the lab for almost a week straight, was taking advantage of Stark Tower’s built in rooftop pool by sunning herself like a lizard, and Steve, who had been seeking her out more and more often lately,  _ claimed  _ he had come up here to cool off after exercising in the blazing heat. She wasn't so sure about that, but she wasn't about to spurn the company.

And it was  _ hot.  _ Just barely on the pleasant side of hot. Steve was laying in a chair just next to her, hands sandwiched behind his head with his fingers laced together.

“I mean, my brain works differently now,” Steve said.

“Hm?” She grunted.  _ Does not compute. _

“I never used to consider physics,” he said. “Still don't, really. Don't think about equations. But with my shield…”

_ Ah,  _ thought Amanda to herself.  _ Okay, I think I know where he's going with this. _

“...I just know where it's going to go,” he continued. “If I throw it with a certain force, at a certain angle… I can predict it's path. It took a lot of time, definitely, but now, I just do it automatically. Though, hey, when did you see me throw my shield?”

“Field video,” Amanda replied absently, brain whirring with the implications. “Avengers response against the killer robots from last week. So, would you say that your brain power has improved significantly from the serum?”

Amanda had peeled her arm off her sticky skin, unslinging it from over her eyes and propping herself up on her forearms. Steve tilted his head towards her. “I mean, yeah, definitely,” Steve said. “I have an eidetic memory, now. That's definitely new.”

“Huh,” murmured Amanda.

“And in combat, I can do almost instantaneous calculations,” he said, picking up steam.

Did Amanda mention his shirt was tight? She had to have mentioned that.


	3. Extra: Texting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Couldn't resist. :'D

_"I thought about sending James pictures once," Amanda admitted. "But talked myself out of it. He was with Steve and I didn't think I could handle Captain America getting a glimpse of me sexting."_

 

* * *

Steve was leaning back on the couch, scrolling through his phone idly.

He was far beyond the _'I have no idea what's happening, help'_ stage of having a smartphone. Living with an incredibly advanced AI in the building tended to push people up the harsh learning curve pretty quick, and with all of Stark's crazy gizmos and gadgets, Steve had picked up 21st century technology far faster than he'd expected to.

Bucky was still learning, though, having (comparatively) recently settled into the 21st century. And Steve had to admit: the situation was _much_ funnier when you were on the other side of the fence.

 _Speak of the devil_ , Steve thought to himself lazily, glance cutting sideways as Bucky nudged him with an elbow. He and Bucky were sandwiched on the couch together, T.V. turned low and flickering dimly in the background. It was late, but they weren't in any hurry. No evil forces or world-saving today. _Still_ , Steve supposed to himself, not without humor, _everyone has personal crises._

"I swear to god, Steve, Stark made these machines just to torment me." Frustration was leaking into Bucky's voice, almost drowning out the sounds of irritated, pointed tapping. A fraction of a second later, Steve went nearly crosseyed as Bucky shoved his phone directly under his nose. "Can you take a look at the settings? I don't think I'm-"

Steve inhaled.

A text notification at the top of the screen - _Hey, when are you getting home tonight?_ \- slid into view, notification for _just now_ , and it was accompanied by a picture. Even in miniature, Steve could clearly see collarbones, the curves and dips of a woman's chest, lace, and a very specific pattern of beauty marks...

Ohfuckingshit he recognized those beauty marks. From accidental glances and leaning down and necklines that weren't medical scrubs.

Steve jerked his head away _immediately_ , but he could feel the flush rising in his neck and prickling over his head. "Bucky!" His voice was almost squeaking, volume increasing. "Your texts!"


End file.
